Book banned since 1988 is ‘selling out’ after import bar was overturned due to missing paperwork

Salman Rushdie’s 1988 novel The Satanic Verses – which led to a fatwa threatening his life, forcing him into hiding for a decade – has finally returned to bookshops in India, the land of his birth.

The novel, inspired by the life of the prophet Muhammad, became the focus of a fierce global debate about freedom of speech when Iran’s then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, placed a bounty on Rushdie’s head due to its supposed blasphemy. The book was banned in India by Rajiv Gandhi’s government in 1988 after riots erupted over its contents.